Morning
by danceDANCEdance
Summary: First part in a trilogy. After their mother's transmutation failed, what's left for the Elric brothers to do but live and accept what they have done... but are things ever that simple? UPDATEREWRITE!
1. Chapter 1

**Morning**

By: Keph

_**Takes place after my other story "Now When Everything Has Changed". A little story about what happened the day after Ed and Al tried to bring back their mother. Manga-based timeline (or at least attempted manga based time-line)**_

"Good morning, Brother." Al said.

Ed, barely awake, murmured something in agreement. Al was standing by the window. The morning light, that early light the same color as pale honey, streamed in around him. That's why Ed didn't really see him at first...and as such, he had one more moment to forget the night before.

Such a brief moment it was.

Al stepped from that light and Ed's face suddenly tightened.

Al immediatly paused.

Outside the window, a bird sang.

Somewhere chimes were ringing in the wind.

Ed stared up at Al and Al shifted nervously, trying to think of something to say.

"I'll get you breakfast, Brother." He finally said, his voice as bright as he could make it. Then he started from the room.

"Al!" Ed said and reached for his brother as he passed the bed. The arm that he touched was cold to the touch. "Al...I..."

"Yes, yes. You must be hungry. Don't worry, alright? Pinako ba-chan is making breakfast. I heard pans. I'll get you some..."

"Please...Al..." Ed said and his face lowered, his shoulders began to shake. Al, watching him, suddenly remembered him kneeling on the ground the night before, after he had somehow managed to crawl from his bed...Al wondered should that face raise now, would the gaze be as he remembered-reflecting moonlight as surely as guilt? It was a face he never wished to see again.

Ed began to say something as Al stood so strangely still, a disconcerted stillness, as Ed suddenly realized there was nothing breathing in that armor, nothing stirring to betrayed life, only those strange new eyes...He started to speak, but never got there. Suddenly Al had pulled his brother into an embrace. "Brother." Al said sternly in his ear, "Lay down. Please. We'll talk later. We'll talk..."

"Al..." Ed said, realizing that his little brother's voice was swollen with emotion.

"I'll be back with breakfast," Al said and stood, "You must be hungry." Without another hesitation, Al walked from the room.

Ed watched him go.

The morning light reached his bed, but it never reached his eyes.

**_TO BE CONTINUED..._**


	2. Chapter 2

Al made his way down the stairs.

He almost fell three times and now gripped the banaster for dear life. His balance was a little off. He realized he was relearning how to walk. That didn't bother him. It made him wonder how little effort it was taking to learn. That bothered him and he couldn't say why.

"Al? Are you alright?" someone said and Al started.

Pinako stood at the bottom of the stairs and Al realized he had stopped in the middle of coming down and had been staring off into space.

"Yes!" he said quickly and laughed, embarassed, "Brother is awake, Pinako ba-chan. I was coming to get him some breakfast..."

Slowly, Pinako replied, a gently skeptical look on her face, "I see...Well. Hurry up. It'll get cold."

"Yes." Al said and hurried down wincing at the new sounds of his movement.

_Clank._

_Clunk._

_Clang._

He slowed his step. It helped. A little.

When Al entered the kitchen, Winry was there. She looked horrible. Al noted the bags beneath her eyes. The redness of her eyes. The puffiness of her lips. He remembered last night when she had stood and cried in the doorway of Ed's room. "Al..." she began and smiled earnestly at him, "Good morning...did you sleep well?"

Al, pulling out a chair from the table paused, "Ah..." he began. He hadn't even thought about sleep and he didn't feel the least bit tired...

"Winry, help me here, will you?" Pinako suddenly said in a loud voice. Even Al jumped at the sound.

"Alright..." she said.

Al watched the two. The shorter Pinako stood on a stool and stirred something in a pan. She pointed to a plate across the room.

Last night Al hadn't thought about sleep at all. He had been intent on so many other things. His brother's face. The moon's face. That tiny silver latch he had finally managed to lock. He had felt a particular rush of pride when the device had finally connected and he heard the little sound that declared it locked. He had gazed at his hands with a sort of defiance then, daring them to try not working for him anymore. Now he looked at them dumbly. He wasn't tired...He wasn't tired...because although this armor looked like a body...in truth it was...

"Al..."

"Yes, ma'am?" Al said, startled again from his thoughts.

Pinako softly laughed. Al had never heard seen her like this, not even when their mother had died. Her every movement spoke of care, her words, her breathing were calm and gentle. Hearing her speak was enough to comfort him, but the words she spoke now lifted a weight he realized was redescending on his heart, "Don't worry, child." She said, "Everything is fine. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am." Al said.

Winry, yawning, returned with an armful of plates, then. Pinako took a plate from the stack and filled it with eggs and handed it back. Al stood and walked over to them and Winry, yawning again, placed it in his hands. Al turned and bagan to make his way back to his brother when Winry, stifling her third yawn asked, "Al...don't you want something to eat, too?"

"Huh?" Al said and paused. He gazed down at the steaming food in his hand and although he recognized it as one of his favorites, he realized that he didn't want anything. He couldn't even smell it..."Ah...No...No thank you..." he said and hurried out of the room.

_Clank_...

He wasn't hungry.

_Clunk_...

Not at all.

_Clang_.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

**Author's Note: _A great big THANKS! to Dragonflyr, Henrika, and Gozilla for reviewing my first FMA fic! You guys rock! Hope you liked this one too:) Bye bye:)_**


	3. Chapter 3

When Al returned to Ed's room, his brother sat on the bed, his one hand gripping the space between shoulder and the place where his arm had been only the night before. His teeth were gnashed. His eyes were closed and there was sweat on his brow.

"Brother?" Al asked.

Immediatley, Ed looked up, and part of that same motion found him removing his hand, squaring his shoulder, loosening his jaw.

It was too late, of course. Al had seen him. He had thought that Pinako had given him medicine...apparently it had worn off...

"Brother. You're hurting. I'll get Pinako ba-chan, she can..."

"No!" Ed paused at the rough grate of his own voice. He cleared his throat with a forced laugh. "I'm fine. Really...Ah...Breakfast...That...looks...good." He reached out his hand.

Al stared at it for a moment. It was shaking.

He sighed. He would get Pinako as soon as Ed was finished eating.

"Here." he said and placed the plate into Ed's hand.

"I...I'm starving." Ed said as he balanced the plate on his good knee. "Looks good..." he said, but the look on his face when he gazed at the eggs glinting on the plate was nothing short of nauseus.

"Brother..." Al began, but before he could continue, Winry suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"Ed!" She cried, " How're you feeling?"

Ed just blinked at her, then looked away. "I'm alright, Winry."

"Ed?" She said, her smile slipping, then, catching sight of Al watching his brother, she smiled again, brighter this time, "Hey! That's great! That's great! I knew you'd be fine, of course. Although..." She suddenly frowned, "Nothing...nevermind..."

"Ah...Winry..." Al said as he caught Ed's hand shaking as it gripped his fork, "Is Pinako ba-chan downstairs?"

"I said I was fine, Al!" Ed said quietly.

Winry walked over to Ed and took the plate from his knee. She sat next to him on his bed and stirred the eggs. "She went to your guys' house. She'll be right back. She said she wanted to get some clothes..."

"I see." Al said and suddenly stood. "I'll be right back, Brother."

"Wait! Where are you going?" Ed called as Al was half-way to the door.

"Home." Al answered.

At the word Ed almost flinched. That look in his eye appeared again. His eyes darkened. His head lowered.

"Brother...I'll be right back." Al promised, his voice so earnest.

"Alright...alright, Al..." Ed said and Al wished he could say something. That he could stay. But the truth was that Al needed to return home. Perhaps Ed guessed his little brother's true intent. Either way, he said nothing more.

Was "home" now such a terrible thing?

"Ed...here. Eat up." Al heard behind him as Winry lifted an egg-laden fork to Ed's lips.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	4. Chapter 4

The house wasn't far from Winry and Pinako's.

So why did it seem to take forever to get there that morning?  
Perhaps because Al, without realizing it was staring at everything around him as though he had never seen it before.

True, he was taller and he was sure looking at things from that kind of different perspective...

But...

There was something else, too.

It really...

It really looked different.

Things looked brighter. Beautiful. He saw a tree moving in the wind and the leaves looked as delicate and gorgeous as silk bells. The grass moved and like dancers stepping in time, wildflowers bowed left, then right. He stared at them-the white ones here, the red ones there. Gentle and lulling, he stared at them.

He had stopped then and looked up.

There-just beyond the low wooden fence he and Ed had helped build, there, standing silouetted in the morning light...

Was home...

"Excuse me." a voice said.

Al jumped and turned. There, standing short and bent over, was an old man.

"Mr. Schaefer!" Al said in surprised.

The old man's eyebrows raised. "Do I know you, son?" he said, then, as though answering his own question, added, "Although you do sound familair. That you do."

"It's me, Mr. Schaefer! I'm..." Then Al stopped cold.

"Yes? You're...what did you say? My hearing's a little off."

Al's voice suddenly took on a hollow edge. "Nothing. I'm sorry..."

Mr. Schaefer smiled kindly, but it was a smile reserved for a stranger..

But...

...Al and Ed had spent every Tuesday after school at Mr. Schaefer. He had a small library with serveral rare alchemy books. He would hand them, one by one, to the boys as they asked, and then, he would place before them fresh milk for Al and cranberry juice for Ed, and then there were cookies and then there were the times when he would look at Al and tell him how much he was growing and he would look at Ed and say how much he wasn't...

"Sir? Sir? Are you alright?" Schaefer was saying.

"Ah...Yes. Sorry. I...uh...I didn't sleep last night." That was true enough.

"I see..." Schaefer said.

"Was there something you wanted to ask?" Al said quickly because he was suddenly uncomfortable under the man's intent gaze. He wondered what would happen should the old man place his voice, and perhaps thinking that Al was playing a game in the old suit of armor remove his head only to find nothing inside.

"Yes! Yes!" The man clapped his hands, "My memory's also going, you see." He laughed. "Yes. I was wondering if you had seen two small boys around. I heard noises from their house last night and I thought perhaps they had returned home."

"Home...?"

"Yes...They had been gone for awhile. The older one was noisy, but they were such sweet kids. Poor kids, too, their mother...sweet soul...you see...she died. I think it crushed them...Poor things...Sir? Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes!" Al said, sounding too cheerful. "I'm sure she was a...sweet soul..."

"Yes...But...have you?"

"Have I...?"

"Seen them?"

Al hesitated. For a moment, he almost confessed, but in the end, he didn't. "I'm sorry. If I do, I'll tell them you're looking for them."

Schaefer smiled. "Thank you." he said and suddenly patted him gently on the shoulders, "Take care, stranger. It seems you need some rest."

"Yes...thank you."

Schaefer smiled broadly, warmly, and left.

Al stood still for a while, watching him go.

Everything around him still seemed beautiful, but it had changed again, dimmed somehow, became more distant to him...

Al stared at the flowers.

"Mother..." he whispered. "Make everything stay still...just for a moment...just so I can understand what's happened...please..."

In reply, the trees moved in the breeze, the grasses bowed.

The house waited in the distance, but Al, for a moment, remained where he was, and then the moment moved on without him.

He hadn't expected any solace.

Not after what he and his brother had done...

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:_ I put the first two parts up and suddenly decided to write two more parts. Hope you guys like the story-don't worry more is coming soon! Please review:)_**


	5. Chapter 5

Home stood before him.

Al paused. The house had never seemed so quiet, still and haunted...

He wondered if it was just in his mind, but somehow, as the night before flashed in his mind, he doubted it.

Here was where the path ended, this place where he stood and although the wildflowers behind him had seemed beautiful, here, they only seemed grey, they only seemed dead.

In fact, this place...this place he and Ed had once called home...

It seemed...

"Ed..." Al whispered.

"Al?" A voice suddenly said from near-by.Al jumped. Literally jumped and clanged heavily to the ground a few feet farther than he had started.

"Pinako ba-chan?" Al said as the old woman cocked her head at him.

"What were you doing here, Al? Is Ed alright?" she asked. Clutched in her knarled hands was a suitcase and she had a long red coat thrown over her shoulder. Al recognized it as his brother's. He also noted that there was a layer of dirt on her hands, and mud on her shoes, but he didn't think about that, not yet.

"Ed? Ed is...that is..."

"Out with it, Al."

"Yes...he needs medicine...He...he's hurting, Pinako ba-chan."

"I see..." Pinako said and she suddenly looked behind Al to the house. "Then I guess it can't be helped. I'll go back."

"Thank you..."

Pinako paused a little ways up the path and looked back, "Al? Aren't you coming with me?"

"Ah...that is...I'll be there soon. I just want to..." Al paused.

Pinako frowned for a second. Al thought for a moment she would want to know what he was going to do, but in the end, with a light nod, she turned, "Hurry home, soon, Al. I'm sure Ed will be wanting to see you."

"Of course. I'll be back soon."

"Before dark." Pinako called from over her shoulder as she descended the hill. Al wondered at that. It was morning. What he had come to determine wouldn't take that long.

Al watched her go and then turned to the house.

As he entered it, he suddenly understood the look in Ed's eye when Al had mentioned home.

This place was, for them, as Al was slowly beginning to understand, where something in their lives had changed forever not once, but twice...

Where something had broken irreversibly.

The door opened silently and admitted Al into the house.

Al paused in the frame, peering around at the living room, the kitchen.

He suddenly realized that last night, when Al and Ed had arrived back from their master's, they had taken no time to peer around and note all the familiar things they had left behind for that year. He realized they hadn't cared. They had believed that by morning they'd have all the time in the world to peer around and laugh as their mother called them to breakfast, called them to her, hugged them, kissed them.

_Gone_.

Even the hope of it all.

_Gone_.

Al quickly passed through that living room.

He suddenly didn't want to see it anymore.

He found the door to the cellar opened, hanging off its hinges. He must have done that last night as he carried Ed, bleeding against his chest, to Pinako, desperate as he believed he was watching the death of his brother.

He shivered.

A moment passed and then another and another and Al realized he really didn't want to pass through that door and into the room where he and Ed had tried to transmute their mother. Everything in him screamed at him to turn and get out of that house.

That "house"...

Not "home" anymore...

Just "house"...

Al's hand suddenly clenched and with a deep breath, he went through the doorway, intent on finding out one thing that had been on his mind...

...from the moment his body began to unwind to the moment he knelt before Pinako and Winry with his brother in his arms...what had happened...

Everything had seemed to be going perfect...

What was it...

What had gone wrong...?


	6. Chapter 6

The cellar wasn't dark.

Al knew it wasn't.

He could see the light streaming in from the windows. He could clearly see the desk Ed had sat in all the times before. He could read the spines of the books lining the shelves and the alchemy charts taped on the wall...

But it felt dark anyway.

Oppressive.

Terrifying.

Al reasoned morbidly, that this was the place, after all, where such terrible things had happened...

The failed transmutation of their mother, Ed, loosing his arm and leg, and Al...

This was the place where Al died...wasn't it?

Clear and sharp in Al's mind then, came the image of his brother, eyes wide and gold, mouth open, reaching towards him. Al could still feel that last brush of his fingertips before everything had just vanished...

Then...

Then what happened?

Al couldn't say.

He couldn't remember...

Was there something...it was on the tip of his memory...a door?...no...not a door...it was a... Al shook his head. It didn't matter if he couldn't remember it, and besides, that wasn't why he was here...

There, just a little ways further from the stairs-there Al could just make out the lines of the transmutation circle he and Ed had drawn.

A perfect circle.

Perfect symmetry.

Geometrically and mathematically perfect in every way, calculated within the smallest degree of error.

Of course, it hadn't been close to perfect, had it? The evidence was splashed across that circle in bright red, but that was it. Al paused.

While some things from the night before were faint in his memory, the sight of that...thing...that thing that they had transmuted to be their mother, but was not...that memory was razor sharp in his mind...but it wasn't there anymore. It had vanished from the floor.

Al began to back away from the circle when he suddenly noticed something that also had not been there the night before-footprints. Small footprints leading back the way Al had come. Suddenly he remembered Pinako-more specifically-her hands and her shoes, covered in mud.

_She went to your guys' house_. Isn't that was Winry had said? _She'll be right back. She said she wanted to get some clothes..." _

Ed suddenly realized that the dress she had been wearing when Al saw her in front of the house hadn't been the same she had worn when she had been stirring the eggs on the stovetop. Had she come and buried that thing...?  
Al bent down, then, and touched the rim of the circle and quickly pulled his hand away.

That thing...

_But what about the soul? What can we possibly offer?_

Ed had a solution to that riddle of Equivalent Exhange. The brothers had cut their fingers and let their own blood fall onto that perfect geometry, maring it.

Isn't that what Ed had mentioned when Al had first woken to see the result of their actions?

_It wasn't the formulas, Al...It was **us**._

"No..." Al said as he began to look over the circle again. He couldn't accept that. There must be a mistake they had missed.

His fingers traced the lines, touched the blood of that thing, but he didn't care.

He didn't even notice.

He had come all this way for this. He was sure there had been a mistake on their part. He could then return to Ed and tell him and that look he had in his eye could fade. Al could understand for himself what had really happened.

But there were no errors, not one, and by the time that Al had raised himself from his investigation, the sun was coming through dusty and low through the windows.

It was sunset.

Al stared at it and for once felt truly nothing...

He was numb.


	7. Chapter 7

Pinako returned home and the first thing she saw was Winry about to throw a wrench at Ed.

"Stop being so stubborn! I'm trying to help!" She yelled.

"I told you I'm fine!" Was the reply (actually, it was more of a growl) from the boy sitting up on the bed. "Where's Al? He's been gone for a long t-."

Pinako sighed, set down the bag and coat just outside the room and entered. Winry immediatly turned her way, "He won't listen to reason!" she said. "He's obviously in pain."

"No I am not!"

"...But he won't..."

"Winry I AM FI..."

"QUIET!" Pinako yelled and both immediatley silenced in the middle of their words. Pinako glanced at Ed. His face was very flushed. Either she had interupted something other than a fight between him and Winry, or that boy had a real fever. From the way he was shaking, she guessed it was the latter. "Winry. Go get Doctor Maenz. Tell him there was an accident-don't tell him anything else."

Winry nodded and hurried away, even as Ed stubbornly whispered, "I'm fine dammit."

Pinako walked up to him. She was frowning. When she stood before him, she pressed a hand to his brow and he flinched. "Fine, eh?" she said. "You're burning up, Edward Elric. I should have checked on you myself this morning. Al hasn't seen as many infections from these sort of injuries as I have, I guess."

Ed looked up at that. His eyes were bright, but it wasn't a calm light she saw there. "Al! Where is he? Didn't you see him?"

Pinako purposefully turned away and grabbed a bowl filled with water and a cloth. She sat on a chair near the bed and said, "Lay down. Let's try to get you more comfortable."

"Nevermind that." Ed said as he pulled away from the cloth Pinako had pressed to his face, "Where is he? Al...Al...where is he?"

Pinako frowned and Ed sunk back a little. "Lay down, Edward. You can hear me just as well laying down as sitting up and you'll feel better."

Pinako barely heard him, but as he let himself sink into the pillows, she could have sworn he whispered "Maybe I don't want to feel better."

She didn't respond to that. Instead, she pressed the cool cloth to his forhead, his cheeks. She rinsed the cloth in the bowl. The only sound in the room then was that of the water moving in the wake of her hands.

Ed had closed his eyes as Pinako tried to cool him down. His mouth was pulled into a frown, his brows knit tight on his head. "Where is Al?" he said in a flat voice.

Pinako brushed the cloth up his cheek, "He is at your boys' home." she said.

Ed's eyes rolled opened. The golden eyes glared at her, and although he hadn't moved to sit up, she could tell by the way the shaking increased in his arms that he simply couldn't anymore even if he wanted. Pinako hoped Winry did hurry. "You left him alone _there_?" Ed said, his voice low and angry.

"Yes."

"Why? You have to go get him! _Now_...!" This time the shaking in his limbs peeked and Ed managed to raise himself a quarter of the way up before he fell back, breathing hard into the sheets, his teeth gnashed, groaning despite himself.

Pinako said nothing, she merely watched him and when his thrashing, his attempts to rise had subsided from sheer exhaustion, she stood and settled the pillow behind his head, the sheets over his body. She set the cloth back on his cheek, and peered into the eye glaring helplessly at her. There were many things she could have told Ed at that moment, but she chose the one she knew that he most needed to hear, whether or not he wanted to hear it, "I only know the little Alphonse has told me about what you boys tried to do, and although I think you were wrong to do such a thing, you were right in one thing. You saved Al's life." She paused and her eyes turned uncharacteristically soft, "He loves you as you love him. So rest now. He'll return soon. He promised he'd be back before sundown."

Ed stared at her for a moment, and Pinako wasn't sure if he hated her or just couldn't believe her words. Either way, he turned away from her, then.

Pinako sighed and dipped the cloth back into the water.

When the doctor came, Ed was almost asleep...He had been having a dream half-awake...in it there was Al looking so trusting. How could Ed ever face him again? He hadn't saved Al...he had...he had...

His thoughts were interupted as the doctor arrived. He heard Pinako greet him and elude all mentioning of what kind of "accident" had occurred to put Ed in such a state. Then, Ed was turned gently over.

The boy felt like he was far away as the man's face hovered over him. He knew it was the fever and didn't care. He hadn't cared, not when he had first felt that fever pounding behind his eyes, and not now when he felt it like flames licking at the insides of his bones. The doctor was staring down at him, concerned, worried, anxious... Ed didn't care about that either...there was only one thing he cared about..."Al..." he whispered and hated how heavy his eyes felt, how weak he was.

That's when his vision faded. He had a last peek of the change in a doctor's face, then a gloved hand was reaching towards him, or...was it a hand...? Between cuff and glove...just for a moment...Ed swore his saw something glinting...something almost like...metal...

**_Author's Note:_** **Hiii! Well...here it is...the next installment (whoop-whoop). Hope you guys like it! And a GREAT BIG THANKS : ) to TheOneBlue Gecko, Myeerah and Eco Child for reviewing the first part of this fic! Arigatou:)**


	8. Chapter 8

Ed dreamed of the gate.

He heard it-the groan as the door swung heavy on invisible hinges.

He saw that terrible eye, and those little hands, all waving, all palm-up, beseeching a piece of the boy who would dare return to this place.

He saw...

A soul.

Golden and brilliant, it salted the air with the taste of sunshine and sorrow.

It was beautiful, but all Ed felt was horror.

He began to run towards it, and there was the feeling...no...the knowledge...that as fast as he ran, he wouldn't make it. This time that soul would leave forever. This time, Al would die.

And like before...it would be his fault.

_No! Please! He's my only brother! Please..._

That's when Ed woke up.He had only a moment to realize that he was sleeping in a bed at Pinako's and that someone was holding his hand. The grip was strange.His first thought was that it was Winry, or Pinako, or the doctor with his gloved and glinting hands.

But he was wrong.

"Al...?" Ed whispered and sat up. Again had come the moment of disorientation, when Ed had to remember that this was his little brother...but the moment was brief. There was a reason for that. "Al...?" Ed said again, louder, but Al didn't move.

Something was wrong.

Al knelt at Ed's bedside. His head hidden, pressed into the bed. If he still had his body, he would be suffocated, doing something like that...And then there were those little sounds coming from him. Tiny gasps, almost, breathless and shallow, like someone trying to catch their breath. His back was bowed, his huge body pressing heavy into the bed, rolling Ed closer to him as a result. Both his gauntlet-hands gripped his brother's.

It hurt.

It was too tight a grip.

Ed didn't care.

He didn't care that his fever was gone. It gave him no peace of mind to feel the throbbing in his shoulder and leg had lessened an amazing degree. He didn't think of any of that, nor of the doctor, nor of Winry or Pinako, or the fact that he had decided to yell at Al for staying away so long.

He wasn't thinking of anything.

"Al...what's wrong?"

A long silence fell then, Ed felt his hands going numb, then, almost abruptly, Al said, "The array...It was perfect. It was a perfect array. There was nothing wrong with it. It wasn't the array at all!"

"Al...?" Ed said as his little brother suddenly let his hands go. The golden-eyed boy watched as Al gazed at his own hands, like someone amazed at what they were seeing.

"I was sure we had miswritten a character-they were so complicated. Or we had miscalculated the angles. Or that..." His voice faded, collapsing upon itself.

"Al...?" Ed said and reached to his brother. He set a hand on the armor.

"It was us." Al said in a strange, strangled whisper. "You were right, Brother...I had to see for myself...You were right. We only got what we deserved."

"Al." Ed said, shocked. He had never seen Al liked this. The first time he woke and saw Al, realized he himself had trapped his little brother's soul inside this thing, he had felt his heart ache. Now, he felt it break.

Al paused at the sound of the older boy's voice. Then he looked down at Ed's hand on his arm. "I can't feel you, brother." Ed looked down at his hand. He could see his own face reflecting back from his brother's arm.

"Al...I..."

Al suddenly grabbed his wrist. Ed gasped before he could stop himself. He winced. It was that same grip, that same new, hideous strength. "I promised myself last night I would be strong, Brother, because I know right now you're hurting...and you saved me and..." Al was saying, "I promised myself. 'If I can lock this window, I can handle everything for the both of us'. How could I have thought that?" Ed only stared back at the burning eyes glowing within two empty sockets in the face that was and wasn't his little brother's. He had no idea what he was talking about. What lock? Ed had slept through the night before, hadn't he? What window? What lock?

Ed tried to remember what his eyes had looked like just the night before as they chatted excitedly about the miracle they would surely produce. The miracle that no one else could perform. Ed couldn't remember his eyes. He could only see the burning light that was his soul and the smell of burning flesh as Al's body had slowly vanished before his eyes.

Al's hand was touching Ed's face. Ed couldn't say when that had happened. "But I can't be strong, brother...I couldn't even tell Winry I wasn't hungry or Mr. Schaefer that I was me...and...Big Brother...I can't even feel you..." That hand touched Ed's cheek, his eyes, his lips. "What happened to mother, what was that thing? And me, Brother-what happened to me?"

"Al...?" Ed said. Al's hand still touched his face and Ed reached up and took that hand in his own. Ed frowned because he was trying to keep himself together. It was frown or he would loose it. Now wasn't the time to loose it, not with Al like this. What had he seen at the house? Why did he seem so crushed that he couldn't handle this? What was Ed thinking? Truth be told, Ed felt he himself had already gone crazy.

TBC...


	9. Chapter 9

His voice was calm when Ed told Al to get the mirror that was on the wall near the window. Al, his mind a mess, obeyed; he didn't note that his brother's voice was calm, true, but it was also strange, hollow somehow. Al brought the mirror to his brother who in turn set it down one handed, on a stack of books on the nightstand next to his bed without a look up at the younger boy. Wordlessly, he pulled Al to sit next to him, then adjusted the mirror.

"Brother...what...?" Al said.

"You wanted to know how I did it...right?" Ed said in that same strange voice.

"Mmmm..." Al said nervously. "But what about mother...? What about the Equivalent Exchange...?"

Ed turned to him with a serious look on his face. "We were wrong about that, Al-but it wasn't what you're thinking." He reached towards Al's face, set a hand against his cheek. "Help me with this, Al."

"With what?"

Ed's wasn't looking at him. "Your...helmet...Help me take it off."

Al pulled his head from his brother's reach. "What do you mean? You can't take that off?" Ed was smiling softly. It was that smile that made Al relax. It was a sad smile. Ed was just trying to help; he didn't want to do this anymore than Al. Al sighed and when he saw Ed's hand touch his jaw and scoop his fingers inbetween his neck, Al braced himself and put his own hand on the other side and pulled up.

"What we transmuted wasn't mother, Al." Ed was saying. Al was waiting for the moment when his sight would shut off as his head was lifted from his body-for surely that would happen. How could he see without eyes? He waited-but that moment never came. Al somehow was looking down at his own head sitting in Ed's lap. Ed's voice was coming from far away."We were wrong. I almost understood what exactly it was we were missing-that piece that we needed. It wasn't the circle and it wasn't the formulas. It was...something else."

Al said without a mouth...or a head for that matter, "What "something else?""

Ed shook his own head, his mouth twisted wistfully. His fingers rested on top of Al's helmet. "I didn't have time to find that out...But it wasn't you Al. It wasn't me. Not like that. We...we loved her. Didn't we? That's why we tried to bring her back...Was that so bad?"

"I...I don't know anymore, brother..."

Ed hesitated. "Come here, Al." he said.

Al came closer and let Ed pull his shoulders down. He watched as his older brother reached into the armor. He wasn't sure from where he was watching this happen. The angle changed from moment to moment. It saw where Al needed it to see. So that means that he saw in the mirror when Ed pointed to something inside the armor, something Al knew hadn't been there before, something written in red. "What is that, brother...?" Al began, but didn't finish. Ed's hand had accidently brushed against that red writing and for the first time since Al had woken in the cellar in their house, Al felt his hand. He felt...

Al pulled back quickly, startling Ed who watched him clatter backwards onto the floor.

"Al...?" Ed asked, his voice full of concern as he leaned over his little brother.

Al's voice was small, "What is that, brother?" Ed hesitated. "Brother...?"

Ed cleared his throat. "You don't have to be strong for both of us, Al. I'm here. Understand? You're my only brother. I'll always be here for you. We're all we have in the world..."

"Brother...?"

Ed sighed and that sad smile was back. "It's a blood seal, Al. It's how your soul is bound to the armor. Last night when you...when you disappeared...I transmuted you using my arm as material..using my blood to write that seal. It bound you. I bound you..." Ed held out his good arm. There was a faint stain on his forearm. It looked exactly like the seal Al had seen inside his armor.

"But..." Al said, amazement setting his mind back to reason, "We never learned how to do that. I never read about that in any of the alchemy books we read...How did you do that, brother...?"

Ed's look was distant, "The gate. That's how I knew." At Al's silence, Ed looked at him. "You remember it, Al?"

But Al didn't remember a gate...

What gate?

Ed was watching Al. It was strange, but even like this, Al somehow still managed to slouch just that way when something was bothering him and one hand nervously figetted, now at his side, now at his left elbow. Al gazed back, headless, his shoulders bent and his fingers tense. "A gate?" he said distractedly, "I don't remember a gate...there was a door, I thought, but it must have been a dream."

But, Ed thought now, wasn't this all a dream?

He imagined he would wake up any moment and there Al would be shaking him awake and Ed would feel the warmth of his hands and see him smile...

"Brother?" Al said.

"Al...what is it like...in...in that body...is it..."

Al paused and Ed looked up quickly, hand raised, ready to erase the question, but Al replied, "It's like..." Al paused again. It was hard to explain. What is the sensation that is no sensation? "It's like when your foot falls asleep."

Ed's face darkened, "You mean, "numb"?"

"No! No...not that...it's like, I'm about to feel something, I'm holding my breath for it...but it just.. doesn't come..."

Ed just stared at him for a moment, a strange looking in his face. His eyes fell to his good arm. Al saw the small fingers suddenly clench into a fist. "Al..." Ed had said and in a sudden move had thrown his good arm around Al's shoulders, buried his face in his shoulder. Al watched him and wondered if he had heard anything after "numb." Al didn't think he had and he suddenly wished he hadn't said it like that...Even if...

Even if it were the truth.

TBC...


	10. Chapter 10

It was early morning when the doctor returned to check on Ed.

He sat on the bed, looking down at the pale face of the sleeping boy. His brow was tight and he was murmuring something. Maenz regarded him for a full minute, but he was no closer to piecing the words together. "Mother", the boy said many times, and when he said that word his mouth would suddenly grimace like he was on the edge of tears. He said that word many times, and the other word he said so often was the name of his little brother...As the doctor peered down at Ed, he wondered for the first time where Al was. If this brother was in such a condition, did that mean that the other boy was...?

"Al...Al..." Ed said softly.

The doctor sighed and reached for Ed's wrist. Of course the younger boy was alright. Pinako hadn't mentioned him and although she was being mysterious, she wouldn't leave out if Al had been hurt...Perhaps he had stayed with that woman who was supposed to be teaching them alchemy. It was the doctor's turn to grimace. Alchemy had that effect on him. Maenz touched Ed's wrist to check his pulse and as soon as he did, Ed's eyes fluttered open. "Edward?" The doctor said and leaned closer to make sure those golden eyes were focused.

He found they were, but they weren't focused on him.

"Al..." Ed said and for a moment the doctor just thought he was still half awake, still caught up in whatever dream he had been having that had made him call to his mother and his brother. It had to be true, because what Ed's eyes were so focused on was a huge suit of armor someone must have brought up into the room late in the night after the doctor had finished tending to the boy and his fever, questioning Pinako (to no avail) as to what really happened...but who and why they would bring such a thing up the doctor was just about to try figuring out when the armor spoke.

"Good morning, Brother." it said in a rather sweet voice...

A rather familiar voice...

The doctor's eyes were suddenly narrow, his head swinging like a pendelum on a confused arc from armor to boy, "Al." Ed said with a relieved sigh and eyes too wide.

"Al?" The doctor said, but it didn't seem as though either suit or boy had heard him, for the conversation continued and the doctor, still holding onto Ed's wrist was measuring time with his patient's soft pulse.

"Did you sleep well, Brother?" asked the armor.

"Yeah." Came the answer that was obviously a lie. "You Ok?"

"Mmmm. It rained earlier. It made a lot of noise."

"Really?"

"Excuse me." The doctor finally interjected.

Ed's eyes were suddenly on him and the armor seemed to focus its attention on him. The doctor wasn't sure how he felt about that, not when he was in the room of a mysteriously and terribly injured child and a mysterious and quite frankly terrible looking suit of armor just appears overnight and decides to focus on him...But that didn't matter...What did was..."Sorry, Doctor Maenz." The armor said in that too familiar voice again.

It wasn't that the doctor didn't know who that was in there. It was obvious, of course; the voice and the fact that Ed had called it by its name, it was just it seemed impossible. The boy who belonged to that name was more than half the size of that armor, and yet, there that armor was, standing upright and walking towards him with a gait only slightly off, as though whoever was in there was a little stiff, or unused to such armor..."Alphonse...?" The doctor said as the armor in which a tiny 10 year old was somehow hiding stood in front of him. The doctor craned his head. "What are you doing in there?" The doctor reached out his gloved hand and touched the armor's wrist.

"Don't." Al said softly as the doctor began to tug on his hand. "Please don't do that, Doctor Maenz. I'd rather if you didn't take that off."  
The doctor's eyes were wide through his glasses now. There was something familiar about this. Not only this armor standing before him. He'd seen it before, although it had been a few years, when the boy's father, Hoenheim, had invited him into the family basement-then an office-for a discussion on alchemy...Not that...but this feeling he had that he hadn't had for a while, not since he had left Central, not since... "What do you mean?" He asked, suddenly unsure whether or not he wanted to hear the answer. "Why not?"

Al hesitated, but he didn't try to withdrawl his hand. "You see..." Al said and suddenly the voice had gone soft, so soft that the doctor could barely hear it. The doctor leaned closer.

Behind him, not quiet, but merely out of his attention, the doctor heard Ed say Al's name.

"You see..." Al tried again and Maenz noted the slight tremor running through the armor under his hand, the shake in the voice. "We...that is..."

Behind him, the doctor heard Ed say Al's name again. It was louder...or closer.

The doctor's hand was reaching up. He just wanted to touch the face of this armor, comfort the boy from whatever it was he was trying so hard to say...

But suddenly, it didn't matter.

"Stop!" Ed's voice yelled in his ear and suddenly he felt the boy pressing hard against his back, digging five still strong fingers into the doctor's neck, "Leave him alone!" The older boy hissed, "Can't you see he doesn't want to talk about it! Leave him alone!"

"Ed!" Al called and pushed closer to grab a hold of Ed, calm him down. However, as he leaned down, the doctor's hand, the one that had been reaching to comfort the boy hiding so strangely in the armor (or so he thought), suddenly spun wildly, and in a single movement, Al's helmet was gone and the doctor had fallen with Ed on his back against the nightstand. He heard the glass that had been sitting on that nightstand fall and break, he felt drops of water on his hand, but he barely noticed.

It was there, gazing upwards with Ed's one remaining hand suddenly slack around his neck that the doctor realized that Al really wasn't hiding in that armor.

"What have you done?" He whispered, but the headless armor before him and the boy pressed against his back, said nothing.

TBC...


	11. Chapter 11

For a moment, Al stood there and the doctor gazed up at him.

Through the window, the boy could see the early light of morning. He could see the rolling hills of the town. He could see his and Ed's house, just in the distance. The sun was rising, sending gold to invade every nightshadow. The sun was rising, but on the horizon was the left-over cloud from the rain the night before and that darkness was growing. A storm was coming. Al wondered distantly whether it smelled like rain.

The doctor was still staring up at him, but the look he was giving him was strange. It wasn't scared, it was studying him, it was familiar and Al had the sudden feeling the doctor had seen something like him before...but that wasn't possible...was it?

Al sighed. "We tried to transmute our mother, Doctor Maenz." Al said, "That is what we did. That is what we have done."

It wasn't what Maenz had expected them to say, but he couldn't say he was relieved to hear it. The doctor felt Ed move against his back, press his face into his neck, hiding himself. "What did you say?" The doctor said, and then again, "What did you say?" It wasn't what Maenz had expected them to say, but he couldn't help the horror he felt to hear him say it. They had tried to bring their mother back from the dead? They had tried to bring Trisha...

Al had turned from him, he was moving purposefully, despite the fact that he was missing his head. After a moment he paused and reached towards something on the ground. "We tried to do it two nights ago and this is what happened. Ed saved me... If he hadn't transmuted my soul, I would've died." Ed was shaking his head in the slope of the doctor's neck. The doctor wasn't sure what he was trying to deny. The doctor watched as Al replaced his helmet and turned two eyes like captured fireflies burning bright and red towards him. "I'm sorry."

The doctor opened his mouth, but it was then that he saw over Al's shoulder to the doorway of the room where Pinako stood regarding him with a expression too nuetral to be real. He wondered how long she had been there.

"Al..." Ed whispered, then, and the doctor realized he had been whispering it, almost like a chant.

Al was suddenly before the doctor again, and kneeling and the doctor saw Ed's good arm reaching towards his brother as he whispered his name again. It was only when he had been collected into the arms of his younger brother that the doctor stood. Pinako was watching them too, that same too-calm look on her face, her pipe drawn tightly against her lips.

"Brother?" Al asked, but Ed merely pressed his cheek against Al's and said, so soft perhaps the doctor imagined him saying it, "I'm so sorry Al...It's all my fault. It's all my fault."

The doctor watched the brothers, this crushing sight before him...

He had known those two for their entire lives.

He had delievered Ed, touched Trisha's belly, full with Al...

But now, watching them...the hulking bulk of the younger and the broken body of the older, silver and gold standing together...

He couldn't recognize them.

He turned to Pinako and it was slowly her eyes, dim and haunted, turned to him.

TBC...


	12. Chapter 12

Pinako had just finished setting down the cup of coffee even as the doctor had reached for it. Purposefully, he brought it to his lips, the steam gathered around his mustache, made shadows of heat. He drank it anyway, his eyes staring off towards the stairs, his mind on the two boys he had just left in that room.

_They tried to transmute their mother._

_Dear god..._

"Del? Please pay attention before you burn your mustache off." Pinako said.

The doctor blinked and the action was enough to realize what he had been neglecting, "Ow!" He said, rubbing his lips together and pausing at the slow smile Pinako was giving him. "Don't laugh at me when I'm in pain, old woman." he said.

"I'm old enough to do as I want, Del." she replied, "Besides. You're not really hurt that bad, are you?"

The doctor set the coffee cup down. He felt the heat of the liquid through his fingers. "I wonder..." he said and then his eyes slid back to the old woman drinking her tea. "Why didn't you tell me what they had done?"

Pinako lifted her cup, drank. "You know why I didn't." She said between mouth-fill and mouth-empty. Her eyes fell on the doctor's left arm and seeing her looking, Maenz pulled it away from the table.

He stood then and walked to sink. He set his fingers down against it. He stared at those two gloved hands. "You shouldn't have called me. You should've called Thomas."

"Should I?"

The doctor sighed. "You're really a pain, you know that, Pinako?" From behind him came a small laugh. "But...you really shouldn't have called me if you knew what they had done."

"It is because of what they did that I called you."

"And didn't tell me."

"And yet you know now, don't you."

"You know that's backwards logic."

"Yes. It is." The doctor sighed, but Pinako wasn't finished, "But what isn't backwards is that those two boys are suffering now, Del. When I first saw them at my doorstep after a year of being gone..." Pinako's voice caught, "And when I recognize them at first...Edward bleeding from such terrible injuries...Al...when I realized what had happened to Al..." The doctor didn't turn and Pinako's voice remained where it was, the edge of an experience which even she could barely grasp, "I didn't want to believe it. They are idiots, Del. You know that...but...to me...to Winry..."

The doctor sighed again, but he was smiling now.

"I understand, Pinako. We all love those children, ever since they were born..." He paused, gazed out the window. The sun was all the way up the path now, but the doctor was looking beyond it. In truth, he was looking beyond the trees, beyond the village, into a city buried in the past. He sighed and his eyes closed, "We love them very much, don't we? So much we couldn't save them..."

"Del..."

The doctor said nothing, and nor did the sun or the sky or the wind sending a breeze to blow, ineffective, against the window panes.

TBC...


	13. Chapter 13

"Are you alright now, Brother?" Al asked when he saw the tenseness in Ed's shoulders lessen at last.

The reply was soft. "Yeah."

Al pulled away and Ed sat, half-slumped on the bed.

"Brother..." Al began and stopped. Ed was looking up at him now. Al looked down into those gold eyes and felt a chill run down his spin. When had Ed's eyes ever looked like that? Al's body might be empty, but compared to what Al saw in those eyes...

Al sat down carefully on the bed next to Ed and Ed's neck automatically swung his way, his eyes focusing on him like the only light in an endless dark. Under Al's foot, the broken pieces of the glass made crunching sounds. "Brother, it was alright...I mean...I didn't mind Doctor Maenz asking..." Ed frowned at that, a spark of the old Ed then came through as he saw through Al's lie, "I mean...I minded it, but...Brother...what are we going to say? I mean...I ran into Mr. Shaefer and I couldn't tell him I was me..." Al didn't mean to sound as weak as he did, but despite himself, his words tumbled out, "But what am I supposed to say, Brother? I mean...I am me...right? Still...inside this...I am me...aren't I? But If I can't tell anyone...who am I...I mean..." He sighed, "I mean..."

Ed shook his head and Al moved to see him better. Again, from beneath his feet came the sound of snapping glass.

"We tell them the truth." Ed said and reached out to touch Al's would-be-mouth with a finger. "We're sinners."

Al paused, but he didn't say what was on his mind. He stopped himself at the last minute. That emptiness had returned to Ed's eyes, like an eclipse on his soul.

"You should rest, Brother." Al said instead and made to stand up, but Ed grabbed his arm. "Brother?"

"It was easy...did you know that?" Ed said from too close.

Al stared down onto Ed. "What was easy, Brother?" He asked, confused. Ed lifted his good arm into the morning light. For a moment Al didn't understand, and then slowly, he saw it. There, on the underside of Ed's arm...the blood seal that matched the one scrawled on Al's armor.

When Ed was sure that Al had seen it, understood what it was they were talking about, Ed leaned closer to Al again, and Al found himself unable to pull away as Ed whispered, "It was easy, Alphonse..."

"Brother?" Al said uncertain as he saw Ed's hand scoop into the jaw of his armor and saw him pull up. "Wait!" he cried, but Ed didn't stop and the next moment, the helmet had fallen to the ground with a dull sound that could've come from a thousand miles away. Al could feel his brother's hand hovering inches away from the seal, almost like a weight pressing harder and harder into his back. "Stop!"

"It was easy..." Ed said and Al suddenly knew that Ed mustn't touch that seal. There was a strange note in his brother's voice, but more than that, there was something just on the edge of feeling, a collecting, almost, like something poised on happening...Only Al knew that it couldn't happen...this event that would occur should Ed touch that seal...And so Al did the only thing he could think of; he pushed Ed and quickly moved away, pulling up his helmet from the ground and setting it back in place.

"Al?" Ed said.

"Sorry! I'm sorry, Brother!" Al said nervously. What had Ed tried to do? It had been something, but Al couldn't say what...But now, as Ed reached towards him, arm in mid-air, his naked foot hovering over the floor, Al's eye caught sight of the glass on that floor and it was nerves more than anything, the need to keep his brother from getting too close right now and trying to do whatever it was that he had been trying to do that made Al suddenly open the nightstand and shuffle through, even as Ed said his name again and hesitated on the bed.

Al found what he was looking for and pulled from that drawer a piece of paper and a pencil.

He saw Ed's eye on him and said too quickly, "Watch out, Brother. I'll get rid of the glass, Ok?"

"Al?" Ed said as he saw his little brother draw the transmutation circle. It was a simple circle, in truth, one of the simplest alchemic arrays, and one that Ed had seen Al use thousands of times in the past, but somehow, although he himself had almost performed alchemy, indeed, alchemy of a much higher and terrible sort, the sight of that simple, innocent circle made something twist in his gut.

"One second Brother!" Al said. He was gathering all the pieces from the broken glass onto the paper. He was moving too fast.

"Al." Ed said, "Stop."

"One second." Al said in a voice too high as Ed moved closer to him.

"Stop!"

Maybe Al was going to stop. Perhaps the sound in Ed's voice had penetrated the growing panic in the younger boy's mind. Maybe not. Whatever the case, by accident or not, Al's hands descended and touched the edge of that circle,activating it even as Ed pushed himself from the bed to stop him. However, he didn't land on Al. No. Al had moved at the last second, feeling, even now, that Ed should not touch him, must not touch him...and then it was too late.

The array had been activated and the energy burst for one brilliant moment and was gone.

The glass was whole.

But not for long.

"Brother?" Al asked and quickly pulled Ed up from the ground. The older boy was grimacing, grabbing his side.

"Told you..." he said.

"Ed..." Al whispered and touched his brother's bleeding side where he had landed on the freshly mended glass..."I'm so sor-"

"Why did you stop me?" Ed snapped.

"Brother..." Al began, but never finished, for it was at that moment that PInako and the doctor had entered the room and spotted them.

"What are you doing? What happened?" He saw Ed in Al's arms and he frowned, "Are you trying to kill yourself?" Maenz demanded as he scooped Ed from Al's hands and examined the wound, calling to Pinako to bring water and his bag from the hallway. "Dammit." he said as he watched a piece of glass move up and down with the boy's breahthing.

"It would have been easy...Alphonse..." Ed whispered as his eyes fluttered.

Al leaned closer. "Brother?" He said in a small voice.

The doctor touched Ed's face. "His fever's back." he said and outside the window, the sun finally rose fully into the sky, right above a horizon blotted with growing black clouds.

It was a new day.

The doctor couldn't know, nor could Al, but Ed knew what today would begin.

Last night Ed had told Al he didn't have to be strong for the both of them.

He had meant that.

As he watched his brother break down as he had, Ed had been thinking, even in his dreams, he had been thinking...

In his mind, he saw the array that now decorated Al's back; the same one on his own arm...

_I can't feel you brother..._

It hadn't been hard to transmute his brother into that armor. Not really. In fact, relatively speaking...it had been simple to pull that burning soul from the gate...

And it wouldn't be hard to transmute it again.

Into a body.

Al said his name and Ed slowly turned to him and smiled before darkness claimed him.

TBC...


	14. Chapter 14

"Brother?" Al asked in a small voice as Ed's eyes fluttered shut. "Ed?"

It was the doctor that answered for him, "He'll be alright." Maenz said as Al touched his brother's limp hand. "What were you two doing? How did he fall?" The doctor shook his head before Al could even begin to answer, "...but this fever..."The doctor hesitated as his hand brushed across Ed's forhead, moving his hair from his eyes. They were moving. Ed was dreaming. "I checked him just a few minutes ago. He didn't have even an inkling of a fever..."

Al looked down at his brother and thought of that feeling of something collecting in the air. The same feeling that had made him push Ed away...

He knew that was what had brought the fever...

He knew it, although...

Although he had no idea what Ed had been trying to do...

"Alphonse?" The doctor said, pulling Al from his thoughts.

"Yes?"

"Why don't you go for a walk for a little while."

"A walk?"

The doctor smiled, "Just for a little while." Pinako returned with the doctor's bag and she gave it to him.

Al watched him rummage through it. "Alright." He said, but hesitated. Ed was sleeping, his chest rose and fell, his eyes moved in some dream. Al suddenly found himself staring at his brother's arm and at the blood seal peeking from its underbelly.

"Alphonse?" The doctor said, startling Al again, just when a terrible suspicion was starting to grow in Al's mind, just as he thought he knew what Ed had been trying to do. It was probably for the better that the doctor interupted such a thought, at least for the moment, that is.

"Sorry." Al said and turned to go, glass crunching beneath his feet again, but that was when the doctor reached to the nightstand to set something there and Al saw something he had forgotten about, although he remembered seeing the last time he had seen the doctor at his mother's funeral, it still scared him, the doctor's arm since it was..."Automail..."

The doctor paused in mid-motion and his eyes looked from Al and traveled up his arm where between glove and cuff metal glinted dully in the early light. The doctor smiled nicely enough and nodded, "Yes.

"Sorry...I just..."

The doctor turned away, the smile still on his lips. "I never did tell you boys how I got this. You were too young...still are, I suppose...but...I'll have to tell you how I got this. Not today, though. I think it is a story that would interest you both now...considering..."

"Considering?"But the doctor went on his task as if he hadn't heard Al, but Pinako watched him go and frowned at the doctor, saying, "You should have told him."

The doctor touched Ed's forhead, felt the heat there, then his hand traveled to the empty juntion of shoulder and arm, "I know." he said, and Ed groaned softly in his sleep.

TBC...


	15. Chapter 15

It was a Sunday, that was why Al met no one as he walked.

He didn't mind. It was actually nice to be alone, just him and the sun and clouds and the path beneath his feet...

And the thoughts in his head...

_Why did you stop me? _Ed had said, but...what had Al stopped him from doing?

In his mind, clear and sharp, came the image of the blood seal. Almost in answer, he swore he felt his own seal grow warm... That seal... It was really the only thing he could feel...but it wasn't a good sensation... It wasn't something he really wanted to be able to feel...

Although Al realized the doctor only wanted him gone for a little while, just enough time to take care of Ed without Al hovering over them both (as he would have had he remained), Al found himself continueing down that path he had started walking. He walked farther and farther, his strides long and certain. In such a short amount of time, he was growing used to this armor.

He shook his head and when he looked up, his house was before him.

He couldn't say he meant to come here.

He couldn't say he hadn't.

His steps slowed.

He looked up and he could see his reflection in the window.

_Still...inside this...I am me...aren't I? _Al thought, and coming quickly, almost riding over that thought was Ed's voice, _We're sinners_.

Is that what they were?  
Al took a step toward the window, an armored hand reached up to touch his reflection when Al heard a sound that stopped him still.

He paused, listened again. It came again.

It was coming from the back yard. Al turned and walked there and paused.

It was coming from the old oak tree.

Al hesitated and the sound came again.

The tree rustled in an early breeze, the crown of leaves swayed all at once, and individually, like a thousand chimes.

The sound came again and this time, Al moved. He walked up to the tree until he stood directly beneath it and looked up. It took him a moment, but he saw it soon enough. There, crouched on a high branch, its eyes green, bleating miserably...

...was a cat...

_Meow_.

It went quiet when it saw Al and Al had a strange moment where the cat cocked its head and Al was certain it wasn't sure what to make of him, then the moment passed, and the cat, staring directly at him, cried again.

"Wait a minute..." Al said and looked around uncertainly, but there was nothing to help.

_Meow _it said again.

Al sighed, "I can't climb like this..." he said, but the cat couldn't understand him. It looked down at him with green, helpless eyes and cried again. Al stared up at it. He could stay down there and do nothing, or he could ignore the voice in his head saying that there was nothing to be done now that he was like this. He could at best return to Pinako's and ask for help...

But Al didn't want to ask for help..

He would do this, because he needed to...

It was, if anything else, to prove a point...

Like the latch...

Like he should have done, instead of what he had done...

Ed falling onto the glass, reaching for him, that strange look in his eye...

The look Ed had given him after he had asked what it was like in this body...

Ed...bleeding on the ground, his leg gone because Al didn't stop them from their vain attempt, Ed, his arm exchanged for his little brother's soul...

Al shook his head...Maybe it was more than to prove a point...

Besides, Al thought as he grabbed a hold of the trunk of the tree and started to pull himself up, it's not like it would hurt if he fell...

For some reason that was funny to the boy, and he laughed at his own thought.

TBC...


	16. Chapter 16

When Ed next opened his eyes, the first thing the doctor did was ask him, "Are you still alive?" and when Ed groaned an affirmative, he heard the doctor sigh and stand from the bed.

Ed's side hurt and he could feel the itchiness of even more bandages. He would be a mummy soon at this rate. He peered around. The room was dark. At first he thought he had been asleep for a long time, but a look out the window proved him wrong. The sky wasn't a night sky, it was a sky filled with a storm, a storm stirring the clouds, sparking lightning and thunder on the horizon. Ed's eye remained there on that storm for a long while. He could smell the rain, but it brought him no comfort...If Al hadn't pushed him away, right now, it might have been Al smelling the rain...Ed's eyes closed on their own...If Al hadn't pushed him away, Ed's guilt wouldn't be reawakening now...

"Edward?" Ed heard the doctor say and felt a hand on his brow.

"Don't touch me." Ed said weakly and pushed the hand away. "Al? Where's Al?"

"I asked him to leave for a little while."

Ed opened his eyes. "Why?"

The doctor regarded those angry eyes mildly and it was Ed who begrudgingly turned away first. "Because," the doctor said as Ed listened to the sound of the wind from outside the window, "I wanted to talk to you."

Ed's voice was soft, "About what...?"

"What would I have to talk about with you, Edward? You know what I want to talk to you about."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. How long has Al been gone?"

The doctor ignored the question, "I spoke to Pinako, Edward. She told me what Alphonse had told her."

"Someone should turn the light on in the attic, or a lantern from the balcony. He'd come here if he saw that...it's what our mother used to do when it got dark..."

"She told me how you tried to bring back your mother, that you saved Alphonse after the alchemy rebound. But she didn't tell me everything and she didn't have to..."

"What if he went to the house again? And the rain..who knows what'll happened to the seal... Al could...Al could be..."

"Edward." The doctor said in a voice that was neither soft or loud, but it was clear and Edward checked himself. He had been rising, despite the pain in his head and the ache now returning to the stumps of his arm and leg. The eyes the boy turned to the doctor were such the doctor had never seen on a child before. The expression he saw there, that was the same on the men and women who had returned from Ishbal, the ones who had seen such things that would turned their eyes haunted...the same as the ones he had seen when he had been at the laboratory...the eyes that turned the doctor's own blood cold.

But, the doctor knew, there existed in this world some events that changed a person overnight...

Made a dream into a nightmare...

The doctor knew that very well...

"Edward..." he said again and when he saw that he had the boy's attention, he began, "I asked Al to go becuase of what I am about to tell you. I wasn't sure whether I should tell you, and I'm still not sure...Pinako convinced me...but even she is wrong some of the time...but that look on your face, even now..." The doctor sighed and Ed looked around impatient, as though he would find a way out of the room and to Al who even now filled his thoughts. "I never told you boys how I got my automail." The doctor said and began to unbutton his cuff, "Truth is, I don't think I told anyone, besides your father and Pinako..."

Ed stopped and turned back to the doctor, "My...? Automail?" he said and watched the doctor nod and slowly pull back the cuff of his shirt, the cuff on his left wrist. There, as Ed had seen before, between shirt and hand, was glinting metal. As the doctor folded back the shirt, he saw that metal continued beyond the elbow and when the doctor finally removed his glove, Ed saw five metallic fingers curl and unfurl. Ed couldn't help but stare. He had seen the Rockbells' creations line the walls of their workshop and although he had always known that the purpose of automail was to be attached to a living person, he had never seen it before and he realized now he never really thought people lived with automail...It seemed terrible and wrong and unnatural...And frighetning...He stared and for a minute forgot his guilt and new-found self loathing as those curling digits clicked as each fake joint bent..._click, click, click_...Ed frowned and pushed himself away from that hand that made him so suddenly uncomfortable.

"You don't like it?" the doctor said, and when Ed felt those cold fingers touch his good arm, he shook his head, his eyes too wide, "Neither do I. I hate it. But I live with it as a reminder."

"A reminder of what?" Ed asked despite himself, his mouth suddenly dry.

And the doctor told him.

TBC...


	17. Chapter 17

When the first rain started, Al was sitting, leaning against the trunk of the old oak. The rain made soft sounds as it hit his armor, rather like the sound of rain against an old tin shed. Al looked up at the water falling on his head and the cat in his arms shivered.

"There, there..." Al said, "It's just rain."

The cat wasn't comforted, not understanding a word of what he had just said, and instead, it curled closer to his armor, seeking a warmth that just wasn't there.

Al sighed.

He had been wrong. He could climb the tree, but perhaps, just perhaps, he shouldn't have.

He peered down at his legs and his arms where the more shallow of the dents were. He had fallen not once, but several times, and one of those times he had hit the place in his armor where the seal was beneath...So, not only was he wrong about being able to climb the tree, he had been very wrong about the fact that it wouldn't hurt.

It had hurt.

Very badly.

And...

Very strangely...

But what was more strange was that when he rememebered that pain, the thing that came to mind wasn't the fall itself or its aftermath, with Al curling around himself on the ground, no, what came to mind was Ed's face...

_Meow_, the cat said again and Al noticed that the rain was falling harder.

He looked up into it. Being beneath the umbrella of leaves made it so they didn't receive the hardest of it, but they got enough that Al now noticed the poor cat was soaked in his arms. "Oh...!" Al exclaimed and stood quickly, looking back and forth. There was nothing to help, of course, no blanket, no fire, all that was there was what he had known was there, the house. If Al had had his body, he would've frowned right there and then, but that's when a drop of rain dropped in the crack between his helmet and his shoulders, and he felt that cold droplet run across the blood seal like someone walking over his grave and it was Al's turn then to shiver.

Al looked one more time up into the storm. The storm looked down upon Al and lightening flashed, somewhere thunder boomed.

Al turned his head and looked across the horizon. It was too dark to see very far.

He couldn't even see Pinako's from here.

_Meow_, the cat said, but Al was thinking about Ed.

_Meow_.

"Alright." Al said after a moment and laughed. "You win. I'll take you into the house, but then I have to go see Ed. He'll..." He'll what? _He'll be worried_, is what Al knew he should be thinking, but that wasn't it. Al was the one that was worried. If it wasn't the doctor who had asked him to go and if he didn't know that Pinako would be there by his brother's side, Al never would have left. He probably should've left the cat in the tree and left back earlier, but he couldn't do that then and he wouldn't do it now. Something was wrong with Ed, something that had changed the moment they had tried to transmute their mother.

Something in his eyes...

...a light or a purpose...turned off...

or...a very quiet voice suggested in the pit of his brain...his sanity...

_It was easy _he had said, and his hand had reached for Al...

_Meow_, the cat said and Al was brought back to the moment. "Um.._sorry_!" he said and turned and made his way towards the house, up the steps and through the door. It was the same, even now, Al knew what he had to do, or at least, what he should do, and the smallest thing would change his mind, distract his attention from the thing he knew was important...

But, Al thought as he set the cat down wrapped it in a blanket he found in the living room...

What else could he do?

The cat watched him as Al opened the cubburds, searching for anything it could eat and when Al did find something old, but still edible and gave it to the cat, it purred beneath his fingers as he stroked it and fed it.

Outside, the lightening flashed again.

What else could he do?

He had asked Ed if he was still himself, even after being stripped of his body, and he realized at that moment that he still was himself despite it all...

Latch...

Climb...

They meant nothing, did they?

Al _was _still himself...

And...

That was the problem.

That really was the problem and it had been the problem, all along.

TBC...


	18. Chapter 18

"You were probably too young to remember when I left to Central." The doctor said.

"I remember it." Ed said, his eyes remaining on the mechanical fingers that still gripped his wrist.

Maenz nodded once. "I said that I had heard about a new treatment I was interested in and that is why I left Rizenbool."

"You lied." Ed inferred.

"Yes." The doctor said with the hint of a smile that wasn't really a smile at all on his lips, "I lied. I had been called to Central by a personal letter signed by the Fuhrer himself. I was intrigued by the proposal, but it was more than mere scientific interest. The letter spoke of alchemy and I was interested in the alchemy it spoke of. When I left Rizenbool I was still practicingalchemy. When I left I still had my own two arms. Do you remember that?"

Ed shook his head. "I thought you had always had automail."

The line between the doctor's eye-brow creased, "Of course not." The doctor suddenly released Ed and raised that glinting arm high overhead. Ed followed that arm as though it were a terrible bird high above. "I was not born with automail, of course. What else do you remember about when I left?"

"Mom and the old man were there...Al, too...They said bye to you and Pinako and Winry's parents did, too..." Ed paused, "That was a really long time ago."

"Don't say it like that. You sound too old."

"It was a long time ago. Nothing's like that anymore..."

The doctor shook his head. "Do you remember a woman with red hair?"

"Red hair?" Ed said and his eyes turned distant as he tried to remember.

"A woman with red hair down her back. A smile that made you feel good no matter what. Beautiful and wonderful. That woman with red hair. Do you remember her?" Ed suddenly hesitated, his eyes widened and he nodded.

"Who was she?"

The doctor lowered his arm. "My wife. The mother of my children..."

"You don't have any children..."

The doctor continued to speak as if he hadn't heard Ed, and perhaps he hadn't, "My love," he said, "My Greta and the reason that I left to Central, the reason I lost my arm, the reason I have never done alchemy again, the reason I lost everything that mattered to me."

Ed went silent. He listened to the doctor speak and noted the growing emotion in his voice and felt his heart begin to hurt. Ed knew very well what the doctor was feeling. He suddenly didn't want to hear anymore, he didn't want to feel anymore. He just wanted Al to come home...He just wanted Al...

Outside, the rain continued and in the distance, unnoticed by doctor or patient, a light came on in a house not too far away and a boy who was no longer a boy pulled aside the curtain, a cat cradled in his arms.

"You have never been to Central, have you Edward? Of course not. Trisha would never take you there. It would remind her too much of your father. But, I think you would love Central, Edward. There is life everywhere. It is a big city and that is how big cities are. It took my breath away to be there and for such a purpose...I was such a fool.

"I told you that the Fuhrer himself had summoned me and he did. It surprised me until he told me he had heard of my bid to become a State Alchemist. You've heard of State Alchemists, haven't you, Edward?"

Ed shook his head, he wasn't looking at the doctor.

"I failed the test, of course, but the Fuhrer had heard of a certain submission of mine, a paper I had written on human transmutation." Ed looked up at that and Maenz met his eyes. In the darkness of the room, Maenz noticed how bright Ed's eyes were. "Yes, Edward. Human transmutation. You never knew that about me, did you?"

"No." Ed said quietly.

"It is how I became such close friends to your father. You must have read some of his papers on the subject? I imagine were I to check the array you chose I would find that it came from those papers, didn't it? Of course it did. This is Rizenbool and Rizenbool is not Central. Where else could you have read up on human transmutation besides your father's papers? Unless, your master..."

"No." Ed said immediatley.

The doctor smiled. "Yes. Well, Edward, you see, I am the one who researched that array. It took me five years and even in that time, I never perfected it. Your father told me that it was close, but would never work as it was...he said I was missing something that an array could never provide. I didn't believe him... As you can see...But that is why I was called..."

"Why...?"

"What's that?"

"Why did you research it? Why did you even start to make that thing?"

"Why?" The doctor's face grew long, "Why indeed? Edward. You remember I told you I had children? I did. I had two. Twins. Now I have none...Do you understand now why I tried...?"

"You tried to bring them back."

The doctor sighed. "Yes. And no. Greta had always stopped me from trying. She knew alchemy, although she rarely performed it. Preferred to do things like a normal human being...She refused to let me try and Hoenheim...your father always seemed to know when I was about to attempt it. He caught me several times right before I was about to do the deed. I'm afraid when I left to Central I hated him."

"I can understand that." Ed said seriously, gravely.

"But I should have listened to them and I should never have gone to Central, but you see...although Greta forbade me from trying, it was her who most missed our children. She cried when she thought I couldn't hear her or see her. In the end, I think I tried not in spite of her, but because of her...And in the end, no matter how you look at it, I made a terrible mistake that cost me far more than an arm."

Ed wasn't sure why he asked. He had been certain he didn't want to hear this story, certain that he would not like its end, certain he didn't like its beginning, and yet, he asked, nonetheless, "What happened?"

The doctor looked out the window and his real hand touched the false one. It tapped on metallic-alloyed fingernails with a strange, hollow sound, like rain falling on a tin roof. "Nothing...at first...it was going so well...Back then, the military was still marching into Ishbal and there were rumors that that army was after more than a "misguided" people. There were whispers they were after a magic stone."

"A "magic stone"?"

"A stone that would make Equivalent Exchange obsolete. It was a rumor, but, I believe it was the truth."

"Why?"

"It doesn't matter. That isn't part of this story. What is is that because of that war, there was a need for a particular kind of research. After all, human transmutation, would, in the end, mean an army that could never be killed, never destroyed. I worked on that for more than a year. I worked myself nearly to death and to the edge of sanity. I was prepared to give it all up because to me it wasn't a matter of armies or politics. What do I care about anything in the world when all that matters to me is gone? And then, Greta came to see me in Central." The doctor paused and it seemed suddenly that he had changed his mind, that he would not tell this story, but something in Ed's face convinced him and he continued, but his voice had turned dull, brittle, the careful words of a man who tries to present tragedy and horror as objective fact, "I never knew she was coming...if I had known...I never would have done it."

"What?"

The doctor paused, then turned to Ed, "I never would have brought them back, my children...Lian, Jen...I never would have brought them back."

TBC...


	19. Chapter 19

It was the truth, wasn't it?

Al gazed out the window of his house, the cat sleeping now in his arms.

All this time, he had been worried that because his body was gone, he would suddenly become...what? What was it he had been so scared of? That he would become this armor, empty and souless? But it was really a stupid worry.

He had sworn to be strong for both himself and his brother and what had he done?  
He had told Ed he was numb...and worst...he had voiced his fears like a child...a baby...anything and anyone that is the exact opposite of what he was trying to be...

He was still looking to Ed to be the strong one...

To give him direction...

Even though he knew Ed was as clueless to that as himself now...maybe worst...

Al brought the cat nearer and it stirred in its sleep.

What good did it do to latch a window? Rescue a cat?

They brought themselves a small reward and no one could say they were bad things, but...

In the end...

In the end they did nothing.

They looped one event back to the beginning of another...

Al was himself, but that was exactly the lesson he should have learned two nights ago when the array glowed and everything went wrong.

Equivalent Exchange...

Is that what this was?

He had given more than his faith to Edward, believing they could revive their mother, and more, their old life, Al realized as his eyes settled on the dust that layered everything in the living room, was gone, he had given his blind faith and...

Al looked out the window and into the rain.

He was thinking how much of a fool he was; how much of a fool he had been.

He was thinking that he was too weak for this, that because of that weakness, the events occurring could not be possibly occurring simply because he could not handle them...

Al wasn't strong.

He was himself...

His head bowed.

He had nothing to offer, nothing to give to anyone, let alone Ed.

Blind faith...

Equivalent Exchange.

Sin.

Al peered out into the darkness and the rain and could not think of what would happen to them now...what would happen next.

As if in reply, thunder rolled not too far in the distance.

"Brother..." Al said, and after a moment of staring into the sudden flash of a lightening bolt, he set the cat gently onto a chair and left through the front door, not because he felt a new determination or sudden strength at his own apifany. No. He left because all he could do now is return to Pinako and to Ed and face whatever was to be...In his mind, he truly believed things were as bad as they could possibly be.

It was a significant thought and one he had thought before...

And one he had been completely wrong about...

Like this time...

TBC...


	20. Chapter 20

Ed's eyes were wide and he didn't even care that the hand he had grabbed without thinking was the automail hand. He didn't care that he could feel the faint hum of energy buzzing within those fingers beneath his hand. He didn't care that the hand gripped his own. "You what...?" he said breathlessly. "What did you say?"

Maenz smiled sardonically. "I brought them back." he said slowly, clearly.

"That can't be true."

"But it is, Edward. Arrogance, idiocy, and a year of research, every resource and more available to a State Alchemist later...yes. I did indeed do that thing."

Ed was suddenly reaching to the doctor, and he had grabbed the lapels of his shirt and pulled himself near, demanding, "How? How did you do it?"

"It doesn't matter."

"How can you say that!" Ed screamed, his lips pulled from his teeth unconsciously.  
"Because. It doesn't. You realized it yourself, Edward. You didn't know I had children and do you know why that is? The answer is very simple. I do not have children; I had children...even if I had brought them back...where, do you imagine, they have now gone?"

"I...I don't..."

"Do you want me to tell you what happened next?"

Ed hesitated. He released the doctor. "I don't know, but I think you'll tell me, no matter what."

"Because it is something you should hear. Something you, even more than Al, would understand, since, you are, I hear, the one who planned the transmutation...the one who wanted it above anything else..." Ed said nothing and the doctor continued, because he knew the boy was listening, because he knew it was something that the boy must hear. "Of course, it wasn't me alone who brought them back. A team of us did. I volunteered my childrens' bodies. I was the one responsible for the act. Thinking back to it, I can't imagine that it was me. That year and a half seems to me the life of another person who tirelessly documented, watched, waited, calculated, analysized, hypothesized, theorized, formulated, manipulated everything at his disposal...In other words...I was obsessed...And in the end, I truly believed that I had it perfected...and not just the array. The process...I believed I understood the soul...That I had everything planned..."

"But you didn't..."

Maenze shook his head. The regretful smile was gone from his lips. All sense of objectivity had flown as the doctor delved into the darkness part of his own heart. "I didn't. How could I have that planned? Then...she came..."

The rain had picked up. It hammered against the window as though it were trying to break in, as though it were trying to interupt this tale. At that moment, it was the only sound Edward heard, the rain and the doctor's breathing and the beat of his own heart, loud in his own ears.

"Greta came the morning after they were brought back. And she found me with them. I was sitting in my room. It was a small room and always rather dark. It smelled like stone because it was made of stone, but when it rained, stone and mold permeated the room...It had rained the night before, but that wasn't the smell that filled the room." The doctor drew in a shaking breath and Ed turned his eyes away, shut them. It was like hearing a ghost story-fearing the next words, but needing to hear them. "Greta came that morning, she stood in the doorway to that tiny room. She stood in that doorway and the sunlight from that morning streamed in around her. I remember thinking that she had brought that sunlight. That she was made of sunlight...Of course...at that moment...I was out of my mind.

"'Del?' she said as she saw me, sitting on the couch, two small figures bundled in blankets sitting on either side of me. I held Lian in my right hand and Jen in my left. They held me back, gripped me too tight as she spoke...

"I remember I said her name and it must have taken her eyes a minute to adjust because she didn't realize who and what sat with me. 'Why are you sittiing in the dark?' she asked and stepped forward...and went still.

"I said her name and the bundle in my right hand said, "Mama" and the bundle in my left echoed him. She knew their voices. How can a parent ever forget the voice of their children...even children dead for more than six years? I tried to stop them from going to her. I think I believed that she might not realize what I had done to them if she remained in that light and I remained with the children in that shadow, but I was wrong. They went to her, threw their arms around her and she lifted them, pressed them tight to herself and whispered their names. The smell must have been overwhelming, the feel of their bodies repungent, but she held them, tighter and tighter still...those bodies dead for six years...those..."

Ed listened despite himself and slowly, he came to understand what it was the doctor was leaving unsaid, the terrible thing wrong with the transmutation. He didn't look up at the doctor. The voice coming from the man was barely recognizable as the same that had begun the story. The children, the thing wrong with them must have been their bodies...bodies dead for so long...corpses suddenly reanimated and intelligent...

"That night after I confessed everything to her...Greta left...and I followed...but I was too late...and when the sun rose the next morning...I was alone...My arm was gone...My children were gone...My Greta..." The doctor paused and a heavy and pregnant silence fell between them. Ed saw in his mind the transmutation circle and the thing in its center, the thing that the two brothers had conjured with their hopes and dreams and stupidity and blindness and love. That was what he was thinking when Ed suddenly felt a human hand on his chin, forcing his head up. The doctor's eyes met his. "She was gone, Edward, but I still live...and do you know why?"

Ed shook his head. He truly had no idea. He couldn't imagine because in his own heart, he didn't know why he himself was still alive.

"The chance to redeem myself...Then chance that one day Greta and my children might forgive me..."

Ed stared at the doctor wide eyed and slowly, he began to shake his head.

The doctor released him and Ed's head sank bonelessly into his own chest.

"Your father told me that to live is more than living for yourself. It is living for purpose, Edward. Your eyes are empty. Did you know that? I recognize those eyes because I wake with them still...You might believe you have nothing left...but you do...even when everything is lost...there is still something you can do..."

Ed's head shook on its own.

Is this what the old doctor wanted to tell him?

Was this the story that was to inspire him? Breathe hope back into him?

Ed almost laughed.

Redemption? Forgiveness? Purpose? Emptiness?

What kind of words were those?  
They had no meaning to Edward.

The fact that they had been told to the doctor by Ed's father made the message all the more meaningless.

Ed and Al had failed to revive their mother.

But Ed would not fail now.

Perhaps he did have a purpose...

There was only one more thing he had to do...

He turned to the window as a long shriek of thunder sounded and the doctor said his name, but the only thing on Ed's mind was one thought, a thought stronger than before, and a determination sharped by a sudden despair..."Al..." Ed whispered and the rain pounded against the window.

TBC...


	21. Chapter 21

The doctor sat beside his sleeping patient.

What had he been expecting? He had to admit, a part of him felt a quiet disapointment.

He had come to the end of his story that had felt like a confession, and for a moment Ed had stared at him, wide-eyed, and then, the next minute, something strange happened, right before the doctor's eyes. The boy's eyes misted over, turned dark, tunneled inward...

Now, the boy was asleep.

The doctor checked his pulse, listened to his breathing and it was only then that he finally replaced his gloves, rolled down his cuffs.

He walked to the window and looked out.

"What a terrible storm." he said, but what he was thinking, in the deep part of his mind, the place that now felt uneasy watching that thunder and hearing the too irregular sounds of a "slumbering" Ed, was that he and his terrible story...had failed.

TBC...


	22. Chapter 22

When Al returned to Pinako's, there was only one light on, the one in the guest room, Ed's room.

The rain was pounding down now. A steady stream of rain had poured over his seal , and Al found himself reaching to his back, scratching at the place between his shoulder blades as if he could somehow soothe that feeling.

But now, standing before that dark house, Al found a new feeling coming over him.

"Something's wrong..." he whispered to himself, but made no step forward or back.

It suddenly seemed to him that either direction would have its cost, and he wasn't sure which way to go...

Like always...

Al shook himself then and directly overhead, as though the storm had relocated over Pinako's a thunderclap sounded.

Al jumped.

When the sound was nothing more than a grumble, Al made as though to step forward, his eyes suddenly swept to that lit window, Ed's room.

He sighed, his hands suddenly in fists, a nervous flutter in his thoughts, and walked into Pinako's.

TBC...

Author's note: Hi! Sorry this took so long to get up! I wanted to actually write more, but at the end of this chapter, my computer crashed (!#&$), but now it's all good :). I'llbe posting the next chapter pretty soon! Hope you like it still (even though there's been a rewrite-sorry!). As always, I can't say it enough, thank you guys for your awesome reviews:)


	23. READ ME FIRST

Quick Note!

After I read through I decided to rewrite part of this, so from chapter 8 on, it's new or rewritten. Enjoy!


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